YJ is pretty excited — and a little freaked out — over how much attention her post on the Jasmine Revolution is getting. As of 8:30 p.m. Beijing time tonight, if you google “Jasmine Revolution,” Yajun’s post is the fifth entry on the first page after Wikipedia, Washington Post, BBC, and the New York Times .
In other and somewhat related news, this week I’m really thrilled to be one of several guest bloggers for James Fallows on the Atlantic Monthly site. For my first post I’ve tackled the same question as YJ — why isn’t China ready for an Egypt-style revolution. I agree with Yajun that a major issue is the lack of any meaningful organization, but I also argue that this is because the Party has learned the lessons of 1919 and 1989 and is now very careful about letting disaffected groups from linking their causes together either vertically across class lines or geographically.
Enjoy.
Interesting post, but I’m still a little bit concerned about the normative framework within which you’re answering the question. Why would we be looking for a reason for China NOT to have a revolution? Is it your contention that all societies are in general ready for revolution, in the absence of suppressive forces? Or that all poor societies are? Or all non-democratic societies? I thought Yajun’s point was that lots of Chinese people are, if not content, then at least more confident that the current government will move them toward contentness than any other government would. That kind of aggregate number obviously isn’t the only factor (may not even be a very important one), but I’d just like some stronger starting point for consideration than a slightly fuddled American ideal of “democracy for all”.
Ahem. The lack of academic rigour in six-line blog posts is an obvious sign of the decline of reason. Perhaps I’ll shut up now.
I don’t know if I started on the assumption that China should/ought to have a revolution, rather I was responding to a slew of recent articles which seemed to exaggerate the possibility that the North African revolutions would spread to China.
Personally, I don’t believe there is a “one size fits all” approach to governing, though I do believe that the people should have the ability to speak, write about, and discuss openly which form of government is most suitable for their own circumstances without fear of state reprisal.
reading original article message for YJ:
do you really think pure revolution is priority for arabian and muslim people? that they do not care about their life? that it was somehow different for chinese workers in 89?
i also want note quote from libyan man that it is not probable they will follow egypt, because they are really well now as a present us friends, never had such good standard before, …
also have a look at egypt gdp grow and official business optimism in recent months
but personally i do not expect any dramatic change in china till local economical crisis will make background for it, no idea when, even not sure it will be united directly with next one
recently after end-of-08 fall was in china used amount about 50% of gdp (what is absolutely similar to present fed activity in few times bigger economy) to avoid immediate crisis (see growth fall during 4q/08)
in case of PX: taiwanese private investor had a bad luck there was planned state (co)owned plant in next city of quanzhou, so why do not let xiamen residents ask for sms support also their quanzhou friends first? i remember something like please help, fail in XMN PX can damage also QZH environment
I think if you read both YJ’s article and my piece, you’ll see that one thing we agree about is that there is not likely to be any significant changes for the near future, but that, as you alluded to, a prolonged economic crisis could change that equation in any number of ways.
That was a killer piece in The Atlantic. Just wish it was longer.
Thanks, but these days I try to keep blog posts both here and in other places to under 800 words, 1000 tops. It’s a matter of my own time (I’m working on several different things at the moment) and also the attention span of most readers. I’m glad you enjoyed the post though.